Harper Harlow Mystery 19 - Ghostly Endeavor

by Lily Harper Hart

  Jared knew exactly what she was referring to. “You’re saying that Cassie and Chuck didn’t spark.”

  “They didn’t spark or smolder.” Mallory cocked her head as she regarded Jared. “I’ve seen you around town with Harper. You guys are always holding hands and laughing. I’ve even seen you standing by the lake, and the way you two look at each other it’s obvious there’s a spark.”

  Jared nodded in agreement.

  “Even if she is all sorts of weird,” Mallory added.

  Jared’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s keep our focus on Cassie, huh? I don’t think Harper needs to be part of this conversation.”

  “Of course.” Mallory simply nodded. “I’m just saying that Chuck and Cassie didn’t have a spark. Now, it’s possible Chuck is the sort of guy who won’t spark with anybody. He’s bland. Like ... bland bland. White milk over regular Rice Krispies bland. Cassie didn’t seem to care about that part, though. She only cared about the fact that his options were limited at the car dealership and he couldn’t make the sort of money she wanted.”

  “What about the travel?” Mel prodded. “Did she express interest in traveling?”

  “Oh, always.” Mallory bobbed her head. “That’s what she cared about most. She wanted out of Whisper Cove. Personally, I think this town is great. It’s small, with access to a lake. You can drive twenty minutes and find city stuff. I mean ... what’s not to love about that?”

  “Cassie clearly didn’t love it.”

  “Not even a little,” Mallory confirmed. “She looked at this town as a cage, and it was one she desperately wanted out of. I actually felt sorry for her at times. I would catch her looking out the window and the desperation on her face ... well ... it kind of made my heart hurt.”

  “Did Cassie fight with anyone?” Mel asked. “I’m talking men or women here.”

  “She didn’t care enough to fight with anyone. She basically sleepwalked through entire days and plotted a way to get out. That’s all she cared about. It was her only focus. She did the work required to keep her job but nothing extra.”

  “Okay.” Mel rolled his neck. He was hoping for a lead but wasn’t all that surprised that Mallory had nothing to offer. “Just one more question. Did you know she was dating?”

  “Are you talking about Jason Thurman? Yeah. We saw her with him and asked her about it. She just shrugged and said he was a nice guy. She didn’t seem excited about a potential relationship. She was more resigned than anything else. If you ask me, she thought that restaurant could be leveraged for money. That’s all she cared about.”

  “Thank you for your time.”

  HARPER AND ZANDER TOILED FOR TWO HOURS in their office and then decided they needed a break. That break consisted of fancy lattes, scones, and a walk to the neighborhood where John and Mary Merriweather lived.

  “I think this is a bad idea,” Zander complained when they shuffled beneath a neighbor’s weeping willow and stared at the house. “I mean ... what if he catches us?”

  Harper managed a shrug, although she’d wondered about that herself. “I don’t know. Maybe it would be worth it.”

  “You won’t say that if he kills us.”

  “He won’t kill us.” Harper was certain of that … mostly. “I’ve been thinking about what Jared said last night, though.”

  “The part about you being beautiful and smart? Yeah, I think it’s schmaltzy, too.”

  Harper glared at him. “That part is true and needs no comment. I’m talking about the other part.”

  “The part about John being a smart abuser and not leaving marks where anybody can see them? Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that, too.” He leaned against the brick wall that separated the sidewalk from the lawn. “Do you think that’s really possible?”

  “I think our entire education on domestic violence has been informed by Lifetime movies.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Speaking of, we need a Saturday to binge the new stuff. There’s a Tori Spelling one where she wants to go back to high school and be a cheerleader and actually thinks she looks like a teenager and can fool everybody. It looks golden.”

  Despite the fact that they were supposed to be on a spying mission, Harper found herself smiling. “We’ll definitely watch that one. Does she do that thing where she makes the mutant face?”

  “Yup. I saw it in the trailer. I think she makes it like five times.”

  “Sold.” Harper sipped her coffee. “I’m still concerned about John. The more I think about it, the guiltier I feel. I mean ... everybody in town knows he’s an abusive jackass. At the very least he verbally assaulted Mary and Cassie on a regular basis. Shouldn’t somebody have done something about that?”

  Zander’s shrug was noncommittal. “We were just kids.”

  “Not always. Last year, at the Hot Chocolate and Pink Marshmallow Festival, I saw him with Mary. He yelled at her for putting too many marshmallows in his hot chocolate and called her a stupid B-word. Nobody said a thing about it.”

  “Maybe that’s because we’re used to it. It’s become commonplace. Also ... B-word?”

  Harper shrugged. “We own the cemetery now. We have to be careful when communicating so as not to upset people who are grieving.”

  “That’s ... not something I would’ve considered but okay.” Zander managed a smile. It didn’t last long. “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

  Harper nodded. “I have this really bad feeling.”

  “What sort of bad feeling?”

  “The sort where ... I don’t know ... I have to wonder if we would’ve done something about John years ago, back when people reacted to his outbursts and tirades, do you think Cassie would still be alive?”

  Zander tilted his head to the side, considering. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know how that’s supposed to work. It seems like convoluted thinking to me.”

  “Well, we’re convoluted people.”

  “We are. Still, I don’t think you should be carrying around this much guilt. It’s not healthy. Do what I do.”

  “Pretend I’m never at fault?”

  “I’m not pretending. I am never at fault. It’s always somebody else. It’s never me.”

  “You know that’s not true, right?”

  “No. I’m an angel.”

  Harper’s lips quirked. “Jared told me I looked like an angel when I sleep this morning.”

  “Jared obviously has become blind to your bedhead.”

  Harper elbowed him in the stomach. “I’m really happy, Zander.” She didn’t know why she said it. The words simply escaped.

  “I know you are.” He slid his arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad. I still don’t like Jared.”

  “I think you do. In fact, I think you love him. That’s why you’re always giving him a hard time. You can’t help yourself because he’s family.”

  “I don’t love everybody in my family.”

  “You even love your weird drunk uncle on your dad’s side, the one who believes there are aliens from space scooping up honeybees so we’ll all eventually die, so don’t give me that.”

  “Fine.” Zander looked exasperated. “I love him. Do you want to know the thing I love about him most?”

  “The fact that he doesn’t kowtow to you?”

  “No.” Zander shook his head. “I hate that. I love him most because he loves you most. I know he’ll always work overtime to make you happy. That’s who he is, and he’s never going to change. You two are going to be happy forever.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so.”

  They lapsed into amiable silence. Harper was the first to break it.

  “I don’t think Cassie was ever happy,” she said in a low voice. “I think her father terrorized her to the point of no return. I think he warped her sense of worth and he’s the reason she couldn’t bond with anyone.”

  “Do you think he’s the reason she’s dead?”

  “Somewhere, in all of this, I do think
that. When we finally know the why, he’s going to be at the center of it. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”

  “Okay, well ... what should we do?” Zander inclined his head toward the yard when John appeared on the front porch. The man looked to be surveying his kingdom rather than mourning the loss of his daughter, and it grated. “Should we try to talk to him?”

  Harper immediately shook her head. “I’m afraid to talk to him. What if we ask questions and he takes out his frustration on Mary? I can’t live with that.”

  “That’s the power he wields over us,” Zander agreed. “Maybe we should just watch for a little bit.”

  “You read my mind.”

  “Always.”

  11

  ELEVEN

  Harper and Zander stayed in the shade longer than either of them anticipated. They weren’t novices when it came to spying on their neighbors. In fact, they had canvas chairs and coolers for when they made a day of it. After forty minutes without the chairs, however, Zander turned whiny.

  “Let’s go for ice cream.”

  “It’s not even lunchtime yet.” Harper’s brow was furrowed as she continued to watch the house. So far, they’d only seen John. There was no sign of Mary. “Doesn’t it bother you that Mary is nowhere to be found?”

  Zander shrugged. “Maybe she’s working in the house.”

  “Or maybe John killed her and hid the body.”

  “Yeah, that’s something I would normally say and then get ridiculed for.”

  “I never ridicule you.”

  “You ridicule me constantly. That’s the way we play the game. You broke the rules when you let your man toy start ridiculing me, but I’ve learned to live with it.”

  “Yes, you’re a martyr,” Harper readily agreed. “Seriously, I want to knock on the door, but I’m afraid to. Do you think John would do something to us if we crossed over to their yard?”

  “Yes. At the very least he would say mean things and have ugly thoughts.”

  “I don’t care about the ugly thoughts. I’m guessing he lives in an ugly world so it’s normal for him to have ugly thoughts. In fact, the miracle would be if he didn’t have ugly thoughts.”

  “That’s true.” Zander shifted from one foot to the other. He wasn’t a fan of standing for long periods of time even though he thought his best angles were achieved when standing … and posing. “So ... where did we land on the ice cream?”

  “She says it’s too early,” a new voice replied from Harper’s left, causing the ghost hunter to jolt.

  When she tracked her eyes in that direction, she found Cassie’s ghost glaring at the house she’d grown up in. “Cassie,” she let out on a breathless whisper.

  “Yes, that’s why we’re here,” Zander agreed, obviously missing the fact that they were no longer alone. “We’re trying to find out who killed Cassie. I don’t think standing here is going to help us.”

  Harper made an impatient waving motion to shut him up and focused on the ghost. “I wasn’t sure if you were hanging around. I’ve been looking for you in the cemetery.”

  “Oh.” Zander’s eyes went wide and he made a face. “Is she here? Man, that means we’re definitely not getting ice cream. That sucks, too, because hot fudge calories don’t count if you eat them before noon.”

  Harper ignored him and remained focused on Cassie. “Do you know what happened to you?”

  Cassie’s gaze was sharp when it swung to Harper. “Oh, I know. Do you know what happened to me?”

  “We’re still working on it.”

  “Ugh. This is going to take forever.” Zander plopped down on the sidewalk even though he wasn’t a fan of bugs. “Ask her why she couldn’t show up earlier so we could be wrapping up about now.”

  “You’re working on it,” Cassie echoed, letting loose a hollow chuckle. “That doesn’t change the fact that I never got out of this town. I don’t get a do-over. I don’t get to be free.”

  Harper licked her lips, uncertain how she wanted to proceed. She was used to ghosts, had dealt with every type imaginable. The bitter ones, like Cassie, always made her uncomfortable. “I’m sorry you never got to make your escape,” she said finally.

  “Not as sorry as me.” Cassie didn’t look at Harper. She reserved her grim glare for her parents’ house. “He’s the reason I never escaped.”

  Harper followed her gaze. “Your father you mean.”

  Cassie nodded. “He’s a horrible man. He’s done ... horrible things.”

  Harper’s stomach twisted at the words. “Did he beat you?” It was a blunt question, but she didn’t know another way to ask it.

  “With his fists? Only once or twice, and only when I got older. He said I was an incorrigible girl, wanton. Those were his words.”

  “I didn’t realize he was religious,” Harper mused.

  “Oh, he’s not. He just likes twisting things to his way of thinking. It’s not like he quoted the Bible when screaming at me. He just called me a whore because I walked home from school with a boy. I wasn’t allowed to date. Did you know that?”

  Harper racked her memory. “I didn’t,” she said finally. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember talking to you much in high school. If you want to know the truth, I feel a little guilty about it.”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty. Your life was very different from mine.” Finally, Cassie shifted her eyes. It wasn’t Harper she focused on, though. It was Zander. “You guys dealt with a different sort of hate.”

  “Still, you could’ve talked to us,” Harper hedged. “I’m not sure what we could’ve done to fix things, but I want to believe I would’ve tried to help you any way I could.”

  “Nobody helped. Everybody just ignored what was happening.”

  “Yeah.” Harper scratched her cheek, her discomfort growing. “We’ve been talking about that, too … a lot. We feel bad. I don’t understand why nobody did anything. Everybody in town hates your father.”

  “What’s not to hate?”

  “But ... somebody should’ve done something.”

  “They tried at the school.” Cassie went back to staring at the house. “Do you remember Principal Andrews? He and the guidance counselor called me in once, said they’d noticed I’d been losing weight, wanted to know if there was something going on at home.”

  “I don’t ever remember you being overweight.”

  “I wasn’t, but my father thought I was. He likes women waif thin.”

  “Like your mother,” Harper mused.

  “Oh, he doesn’t like my mother any more than he liked me. He just likes a thin woman around to do all the housework. I mean ... he doesn’t even mow the lawn. My mother does that. He doesn’t help with the dishes or do his own laundry.”

  “He’s emotionally abusive,” Harper agreed. “Someone should’ve done something, though. What did you say to Principal Andrews?”

  “That things were fine and I lost weight because I wanted to look like Paris Hilton.”

  “Paris Hilton?”

  “She was on television at the time for something and she just popped into my head.”

  “Did Principal Andrews believe you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he try to force you to admit there was something happening at home?”

  “He tried tricking me into admitting it. Living with a sociopath makes you smarter than the average teenager, though. Or maybe it just makes you more aware. I knew that there was nothing he could do to help me, so I kept my mouth shut.”

  “Do you regret that?”

  Cassie held out her ghostly hands. “I regret a great many things. I don’t know if telling Principal Andrews that my father was the worst man ever would’ve resulted in a change in my house — probably not — but I was too afraid to go that route. Things can always get worse.”

  “They can get better, too.”

  “Well, I’ve never known them to get better, so I’ll have to take your word for it.” She shook her head as John appeared on the front por
ch again. “Do you see that mug?” She inclined her head toward her father.

  Harper nodded. “His coffee mug? Yeah.”

  “He just wants people to think he’s drinking coffee. He really has whiskey in that mug. He wants people to think he’s a simple man studying his kingdom with coffee and a glare. He doesn’t want to be liked. He also doesn’t want people to know about his weaknesses.”

  “I guess I didn’t realize he was a drunk. I mean … I knew he liked to drink. It’s a little early, though.”

  “Most people don’t realize how bad it is for him. He drinks all day, though. That’s every single day. He never gets to the point where he slurs his words or gets unsteady on his feet. That’s how he fools people.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think he’s fooling anybody,” Harper countered. “Since your death, I’ve been thinking about my interactions with him. Everybody in town hates him. He has no friends. I believe he even sits alone at the Elks Club.”

  “Oh, he does. He likes it that way, though. He’s convinced that if he actually talks to someone, forms a bond, they’ll see what he is. He’s smart ... and horrible.”

  “I’m really sorry.” Harper exhaled heavily to steady herself. “Did he kill you?”

  Cassie slowly dragged her eyes to Harper. “It’s weird. People always said you could see and talk to ghosts. There were whispers about you in high school after you found that kid.”

  Harper nodded. “I knew about the whispers. People thought I was crazy ... or worse.”

  “I always wondered about you. Your friendship with Zander seemed somehow magical. The two of you were talked about by everyone, but you never let it get you down. You had each other and that’s all you needed.”

  “We got down occasionally,” Harper countered. “I think the difference was we always had each other to prop ourselves up.”

  Zander could only follow Harper’s side of the conversation, but he automatically nodded. “We were the fearsome twosome.”

  Cassie smirked, although not in a friendly way. “It was just the two of you for a long time. Then that cop came to town and everybody was talking about you again.”